The days here are lingering. One by one they are erasing themselves off this calendar of no return. The meaning of being “here” more and more is running out of words as I feel reaching another step so calm and so timeless. I think I am reaching to “there”, I am “here”, I am now within this space that only keeps reinventing itself time after time, erasing the past pollution of a span when a cloudy mind and a Life streaked with what I always thought would be blemishes never extinguished. This is new, really new, sparkling new, so unknown and yet I know deep down it is right, it is that moment I have been searching for. How could I have known since I have never experienced it? I can only trust my senses to let me know of it’s rightness.

It is overwhelming, and yet it is not because I know it is right. The form I have become is fitting so perfectly in the mold of it’s same shape that has been waiting for. Suddenly there is no doubt, there is no question of it. Suddenly I am “here”, no past and no future but within this space the moments accrued, their value now have linked together to create this ribbon unraveling and changing color fading away with such smoothness a darkness in it’s hue always in the past unwelcomed.

The Summer Day (Mary Oliver)

Who made the world?Who made the swan, and the black bear?Who made the grasshopper?This grasshopper, I mean-the one who has flung herself out of the grass,the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.I do know how to pay attention, how to fall downinto the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,which is what I have been doing all day.Tell me, what else should I have done?Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?Tell me, what is it you plan to dowith your one wild and precious life?

I received this poem a couple days ago from my good Friend “Colorado Kid”, and I felt as I read it the first time as to why a grasshopper? Word by word, posing on each for it’s truer meaning, I realized in my own mind, my own maybe interpretation, that we are all grasshoppers. I vaguely, maybe as everyone else, knew what a grasshopper is, and yet I had to look up it’s true meaning as I felt he was chosen in this poem for a reason. “They are closely related to the migratory locusts of the Old World.”

It’s presence in this poem emanated almost a sense of eternity within me, “the migratory” aspect chosen, the timeless vagabond throughout the past centuries, it’s long lasting ancestry, generations after generations in parallel with always the also eternal for me question “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious Life?”. I knew the day Spirit and I left that the question… in question… would be the core of our Journey. I knew it would the quest for those words of most importance to me as it’s answer as simple as it is had suddenly changed into one more complex than ever, only because I now, and then, refuse to let Life go by unanswered by “that thought”, that simple phrase haunting me day after day.

I knew it is all within. All within this mind of ours, so incredibly complex, almost non understandable, not just a bunch “of nuts and bolts”, but an entity I could never grasp it’s full meaning. “What is your plan to do…” . It is not the possessions we have all seeked, it is not the shiny and new and bright “object” that we can touch and let ourselves experience by it’s presence. I knew it was more complex than a form one can see and touch. It is never around the common corner for the taking, it is deep down hidden within our own well being but never locked, only shadowed by the years that have build a wall needing moment after moment to be taken down to strip ourselves from it all and reach that “wordless” state of mind that defines “here” and “now”.

There is a reason why we have been here at “The Oasis”. This has not been just a simple four way crossroad in our Journey. It’s doors have been wide open, we have never shut them, only stepping in and out letting it’s contents cleanse us, show us the way, prepare us for the coming curves awaiting these coming times, these “moments” we will pass through by only feeling as we are “here”… “now”. It’s space is so grand, so vast, our backyard has no horizons as we experienced it yesterday by riding only a few miles west and witnessing the Terlingua Creek still a bit wet from the recent rains. It was right here… just a few minutes away. So was the the swimming hole yesterday presenting itself as a brand new “swimming hole” with it’s water levels up higher, as a newly painted wonder never remaining the same.

What else is around here? We are filled with surprises at every outing. It just does not stop. I am filled with amazement with every moment that passes by within my Soul… Such a constant parallel within this path we have taken. They have commuted hand in hand, they have complemented each other incessantly, they have witnessed and sheltered the grasshopper as they have us, arms open as my own spirituality is also thirsty for a well being I can now taste and smile about.

Twenty nine months of Photography is finally in order on SmugMug… In “Your Favorites”, in “States”, some labeled “first year” and second year”, now also “Texas the third year”. Feel free to browse, you can even use the slide show mode and have fun. Merchandise is also available through SmugMug. If you like to order prints, all sizes are available as I store the originals myself considering the huge bandwidth needed to upload them on the Galleries.

Internet connections, bandwidth, cameras, fuel… they are all part of this Blog allowing page after page to be published. Contributions to the site are welcomed always.

5 Responses to “Be "here"… now, Texas”

Ara, your interpretation of that beautiful poem gives it even deeper richness! And to think, the grasshopper found all she needed for that day, no worries about what will come tomorrow, she flew away into new explorations, happy and free.

That I could be more like that “lowly” grasshopper. Thanks for another inspiring and enriching writing.

I think that the grasshopper, unlike humans, just is, and it lives accordingly. It takes someone seeking to find meaning in random events to ask the question: what are you going to do? I don’t think I’d much want to be a grasshopper thanks, I’d miss too much on the Internet, even though being human has it’s drawbacks too. Could we have another cooking lesson please? Say over an open fire pit?

Grasshoppers always remind me of the story about the ant who worked all summer to make sure it had food for winter and the grasshopper who
chirped and sang. When winter came the ant went into its warm home and the grass hopper asked to come in from the cold.
The ant said you sang and danced all summer, so now go dance.
Since then we learned that it takes all kind of people to make a world. Some work and some entertain those who work, and so, this is work too.
I guess all this means is we need to be tolerant to others who are and do things different. If the ant would have invited the grasshopper in he would have had company and entertainment all winter.